


Rip Current

by Babydoll Ria (Babydoll_Ria)



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: 70th Hunger Games, Annie Cresta-Centric, Annie was never a physical victor, Annie's games, Careers (Hunger Games), Character Study, F/M, The Revolution Will Be Televised
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-03-28
Packaged: 2018-01-11 10:36:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Babydoll_Ria/pseuds/Babydoll%20Ria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>rip current</p><p>          n.<br/>A strong, narrow surface current that flows rapidly away from the shore, returning the water carried landward by waves. </p><p> </p><p>Welcome to the 70th Hunger Games.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reaping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sarsaparillia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarsaparillia/gifts), [the_milliners_rook](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_milliners_rook/gifts), [Bookoftinyteahats](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Bookoftinyteahats), [youarethesenntinels](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=youarethesenntinels).



Every child in Fourth starts training at the age of five; the training of course is varied by economic means, location and other variables that are personal.  But the bottom line is: no child goes into the Arena without some knowledge of how to survive-at least past the Cornucopia.

Annie Cresta was from the northern most tip of Fourth, she could see mountains, and the water in the ocean was cold. They had snow, not like those in the south. Her family built ships, ones that could stand upright in the storm, sturdy ones. The name Cresta was renowned for the sturdiness of their products, and how well they survive the storms.

Annie was also the only child of Jonah Cresta, his wife dying in childbirth and the man, no older than twenty-three had been at loss as to what to do with this new born babe. As such, he began her training earlier than most.

But it was for nothing, his wife’s pregnancy had been a hard one, and his daughter born too soon.  She was a small girl, undersized but never hungry and never wanting for nothing, and a vast thirst for knowledge. But her small size made her combat skills weak; she was often tossed to the ground by older students, and friends. It was quite clear from the beginning Annie Cresta was not a physical victor.

But it was also abundantly clear that people liked Annie Cresta, whether it was pity for the slight girl who looked like at any moment the waves would drag her out to sea; or her soft, sweet polite disposition that made people want to help her, it was unclear.

But no one in the north could find one bad thing to say about the quiet girl with dark waves of hair.

* * *

 

Two years ago, was the first year she was eligible for the Reaping. It was with bated breath Jonah watched from where he could, seeing the dark waves combed neatly as she was wont to do in the centre of the first row. Her white blouse, brand new, was brighter than the girl to the left, whose skin was tanned so dark, and her hair lightened by the sun. Jonah figured that girl was from the South, working on a rig to meet the capital quota. 

The names were drawn, two whom Jonah never knew, the girl, Thames Martin, was sixteen and walked like a mythical siren.  The boy, Barney Dawson he read later, was six weeks from eighteen, and the fury he wore on his face would scare Storms.

Thames died seventh, while Barney was the third.

A year passed, and Annie’s training continued. Her teachers told Jonah of how smart Annie was, how she thought of strategies outside of what they thought of, how before any activity they had to be thorough and exhaustive of all the rules, and they had to say rules instead of guidelines.  Once the rules were outlined, Annie followed them to a “T”, but until then, if it was not explicitly stated, she would ignore them.

He didn’t know what to say about that, but when he asked her that night at dinner, Annie looked at him, smiling softly as if she was sharing a private joke.

‘If there’s no rules for it that means no one has ever done it before-or they think no one would ever do it.’ She told him, ‘It’s kind of neat being the first one to do something  no one thinks can be done. And besides if it’s not written down, it doesn’t count right?’

Jonah was taken aback as his own words, when regarding to shipping contracts are parroted back to him, in a very different context.

From a very young age he had told Annie the importance of having anything of importance, a job contract, and a marriage, any of the sorts of things that were binding written down and agreed upon by all the parties and signed by everyone involved in front of witnesses, otherwise one could say it never happened.

It was the second year that they must go down to the central coast, and the second year Jonah must stand in the line of family members, sweating bullets and trying to decide which was worse, waiting to be reaped, or watching his only child wait to be reaped. There is no contest, the jackhammer heartbeat, the dry mouth and the prayers sent to the old gods that no one worships anymore are more than enough proof, that the tiny girl, slowly getting dwarfed by girls with more muscles, and tanned lines who hold themselves like fighters, is his life line.

When the Capitol representative, with hair the colour of scarlet skies that no sailor wants in the morning reached into the large glass goblet and the slip of paper, _Pacifica Scott_ , is read, Jonah felt his heartbeat slow down.

Pacifica Scott is seventeen, with long red hair and skin that freckled instead of tanned, and she was crying when she approached the podium. You could train every day of your life, but still walking to your almost assured death could tear you apart.

The boy, Finnick Odair, was tall for fourteen and was good looking in a way that hurt his heart.

Beauty in one’s face, like the way his was, and the way he wore it so self-assuredly, like an armour would only hurt him when it faded.

Finnick Odair had a small smirk on his face, like this was all a game. Jonah waited for a volunteer, but it looked like no one was willing to die for Finnick Odair.

Pacifica died two days in, her neck snapped by the male tribute from One.

Finnick Odair won; the youngest ever at fourteen.

Jonah was with Annie when Finnick Odair was announced the Victor of the sixty-fifth Hunger Games. She was frowning slightly, and Jonah asked her why.

‘He was first.’ His daughter said simply, and Jonah was once again taken aback at what she said.

He had half a mind to shake her, and scream if she was planning on volunteering to be the youngest victor ever. He never asked, the answer in his daughter’s odd mind scared him.

With the third year, he can see Finnick Odair lounging on the stage, the first Victor in almost twenty-years,  but by no means their first or only,  His shirt was not fully done up, and Jonah watched most of the girls, and some of the woman, and a few men straining their necks to get a full look.  His eyes flickered to Annie, whom he couldn’t truly see in the third row, but from the top of her head, he could see Annie drawing designs in the dirt with the toe of her shoe.

Matilda Starr, an eighteen year old with long willowy blonde hair is called, and she walks to the stage with an exaggerated sway of her hips, that Jonah believed was to draw Finnick’s attention, and Matilda is rewarded with one eyebrow raised. The boy, Lucas Crust, was sixteen and  he stomped to the stage.

Both were killed in the Cornucopia, the first time in years that both Fourth tributes were killed on the first day.

Annie was fifteen, and was growing into a subtle understated beauty, her hair darkening in the sun, and the waves relaxing; and Jonah began to worry more about boys, than the Hunger Games, and the tributes, a seventeen year old girl, Sunami with eyes that brought storms who bleed out slowly, and George Cane who was torn apart by mutts, were given a proper burial.

The fifth year they go to the Capitol, Annie was hidden by lines of girls behind her, and Jonah began to think hopefully.  He is rewarded when a twelve year old girl, Britta Jones is called out, and there is a kerfuffle in the lines, which made his blood run cold when he thought Annie would volunteer, no one did. Britta Jones died fourth. Her partner Mike Springs died eighth.

Seventeen was close, and Annie was far from his views.  She was not picked, and instead he had to watch her friend, Rosa Fien walk to the stage. The boy, Jake Steam was sixteen.

Jonah watched his daughter watch Rosa’s games fanatically, she was murmuring under her breathe, her eyes never leaving the screen, as if she was forcing it to imprint perfectly, into her mind. When Rosa died, sixth, Annie wept, and Jonah thought the obsessive nature would end.

He was wrong, and he watched his daughter go through book after book, making lists and writing notes that he could never understand. She poured through the rules, and asked to go down to the central coast to look at past games.

Jonah wanted to stop her, for she was attracting attention. Sweet Annie Cresta, her green eyes never showing what she thought, and her dark waves organized and clean was sailing up the coast, archiving information of the Old Games, even going up to the Victor’s Warf, and asking the Victors, the ones who would speak to her about their games.

It took Jonah a few weeks, to see what his daughter was doing. She was gathering information, trying to validate Rosa’s death. He let her be, everyone mourns in their own way.

* * *

 

On the final year, Annie wears a brand new blouse, still brighter than the girls she stood beside, and still far paler than the girls who worked on the docks, or made nets to catch the fish.  Jonah notes now Annie’s pale skin and calloused-free palms would never be able to hold a knife like the other girls. Annie had never gutted a fish, nor caught one without sending it back.

In the Arena, she would die. Jonah has had this thought before, but it is too horrifying so he sent it back to the recedes of his mind, never gone, just lurking. She would never be a physical Victor.

Her name is called, and it feels like his legs give way. Jonah is supported by the men surrounding him, pitying him as they watch Annie walk reservedly, each foot fall measured and her clear green eyes unreadable to the platform.

Jonah does not even know who her district partner is, as it feels like all his senses have been cut off if it is not Annie.

Numbly he is ushered through the crowd of people who hold a mixture of emotions on their face, pity for his loss, for Annie will not survive, and thankfulness for Annie’s death keeps their children alive and in their arms for a year longer.

When he’s let in to see her, the strength of his legs re gone again and he collpases on the floor and cries. Annie who had been looking out the window, comes to him and wraps her arms around his neck and hugs him close.

‘Don’t worry Papa.’ She says smoothly, as if she has been saying these words for years in her mind to achieve the desired effect of calming him down. ‘It’s just a game, and all games have rules.’

Jonah holds her closer.

 

 

 


	2. The Train

The train is rhythmic in the way the ocean isn’t, and this realisation makes her smile. The ocean is unforgivable, unpredictable if one doesn’t pay attention, calm and docile at moments, but in the blink of eye it can be a storm, drowning people and capsizing boats.

Not for the first time is Annie happy that she learnt the way of the oceans, over any other mode of transportation. It is untameable, rarely affected too deeply by humanity.

The train, the steel dragon which curls around mountains with smoke, is all human. It powers forward without hesitation, as if there is nothing to fear ahead that the train cannot handle.

Finnick Odair nudges her, telling her to pay attention to Zacharias, and she is. She wonders if he has never heard of multitasking.

‘Annie, don’t you like the train?’ Zacharias asks her, and she can hear a touch of condescension; of course she does, it’s a Capitol machine, and one of the best.  How could she not like it?

‘It is very fast and efficient.’ She says, and she wonders if that what the Capitol, where everything is fast and efficient, but is there no time for leisure?

It doesn’t make sense, because Finnick Odair who is from Fourth, from the south but spends more time in the Capitol, and reeks like scents that she does not fully know what they are is the picture of leisure.  Sprawling out on the satin chairs, his head back and his shirt unbuttoned, like this trip is just a fun boat ride, not sending two children to the death.

Well, one child, her partner Reid Donner is fourteen with beautiful blue eyes. He refused volunteers, he is attempting to do what Finnick Odair did, the only person to do that in seventy years.  He will die.

She’s mourning him, this boy she never met, and she hopes his death is quick and painless. But logistically, no one under fifteen besides Finnick won. And the only reason he really won, was the trident.

She’s not saying that Finnick did not deserve to win, but getting a weapon so much more powerful than the others, and used improperly-who throws something meant to spear? Changed the field completely.

Capitol wanted the beautiful boy as their winner, and they got it.

Reid is a charming child, but he does not yet hint and the handsome man he could grow into the way Finnick at fourteen did.

She knows how they will look, a boy eager to prove himself, and a waif of a girl drowning in whatever concoction of fabric they dress her in.  They are no physical victors.

After Zaharias gives them their scheduale, they’re dismissed and she gets up fingeres trailing on the wooden trim, and explores.

She’s surprised to hear Finnick Odair follow her.

‘It’s amazing isn’t it?’ He asks her, ‘The Capitol has a lot of stuff like this.’

‘It’s predictable.’ She says, not bothering to look at him. She is thinking, there are things to be done, things to prepare.

Papa’s letters, all 14235 of them are in boxes under her bed, neatly labelled. She has been writing three times a day since she was five, and when the gravity of the games came to her.

Her research, she has made copies and buried them in the archives, so when she fails, her reasoning will not be seen as madness.

After all, this is just a hypothesis, she needs to test it out in the field, and the failure rate is ninty-nine percent.

‘Predictable?’

She turns to face him, taking him in. He’s Finnick Odair, tall, much taller than her with a defined jaw line and skin that is much darker than hers due to time in the sun-she burns horribly. Beautiful, like cut from marble and like marble statues completely dead of something that could make her see him as human.

‘Yes. Listen.’ It’s silent, and they can hear the engine repeat effortlessly, constantly _chugga-chugga_ , ‘You always know what to expect.’

‘But isn’t that good?’ He asks her, and it almost looks like a genuine emotion flickering in his eyes. ‘Being predictable?’

She weighs each word in her answer thoroughly. ‘There is comfort in predictability.’ She says finally. He looks like he wants to press for more, and she stops him ‘Why aren’t you with Reid?’

‘Mags is with him.’ He answers, and she raises an eyebrow. Obviously, but she wants to know why he’s with her. ‘I was making sure you weren’t go try to off yourself. Wouldn’t be the first one ya know.’ He wink, and she’s struck with fury that he trivialize someone’s death, or attempt of that.

‘To die by my own terms is not a funny notion.’ She tells coldly, turning away to find more of the train.

‘I didn’t-‘Finnick’s hand closes around her wrist and she doesn’t jerk away, but she keeps walking, dragging him behind her, as if he’s not there. ‘You shouldn’t _wan_ t to die. No one should want to die.’

‘But death on a train, by my own choice gives me the dignity rather than in the arena forcing someone else to kill me so they can live is so much better.’ It escapes before she means to, her comment snide and sarcastic is meant for her own amusement in her head.

‘Well you’re alive longer.’ Finnick says, planting his feet firmly and forcing her to stop. ‘And isn’t that  the best?’

She rolls her eyes, her back still turned.

‘Just prolonging the inevitable. Not everyone likes to be the center of attention.’ She says, he still won’t let go. She can’t shake him off, even with the very bad combat training she has, he still has at least a foot on her and easily a hundred pounds.

She switches tactics, groping blindly for the one thing she can assuredly make any victor back off.

 ‘Tell me about your games.’ She says quietly, turning to look him in his eye. She’s not surprised or shocked when there is some cocktail of unreadable emotions shifting in his eyes faster than she can progress.

She knows she has set him off,  that this train and this environment would make the memories he has locked down deep resurface with a punch, and perhaps she would feel even a bit guilty for doing this to him, but she doesn’t.

Finnick Odair makes her mad. He’s fake, and he doesn’t seem to care about anything, but something is making him tick in a way that doesn’t make sense when she studied the other victors.

Every victor seems to have formed a shield around them, understandable. And that shield is permeated by regret, mourning, sadness and some sort of traumatic coping device.  But Finnick Odair’s shield is so thick she doesn’t know if the fourteen year old boy exists at all, or if his body is just a shell that parrots words because his eyes are so empty.

No human should be like that.

She thinks his grip on her wrist has slacked, and so she pulls only for it to tighten, and for Finnick to look her back in the eyes, with something she would call anger to anyone else.

‘Tell me about yours.’ He challenges.

Her eyes narrow. ‘We both know I’m not a victor.’

‘If you think like that you’re already dead.’ He tells her, and his grip tightens.

She feels irritated, who is he to tell her how to think. He’s a year older than her, but that doesn’t mean anything. ‘Thinking realistically is better than thinking I could win.’

There’s an argument brewing, and she doesn’t know either of them are so heated. He doesn’t know her, and she’ll be dead in two weeks; he’s watched eight tributes die while he’s supposed to keep them alive and countless more when they were just names on a screen.  He should know by now not to get attached.

He’s just ferrying them to their death, and comforting them with false hope that they could win and survive.

‘Go talk to Reid.’ She says, walking away from this argument. It’s not doing them any good.  ‘He’s the one who still thinks he can win.’

‘But isn’t it better to think realistically than give him some false hope?’

Her stride doesn’t falter, though if she exhales sharper that is no indication that he notices. ‘Give him some sort of comfort. He thinks he’s going to be the next you.’

The door to the next carriage cuts off any retort he could have, and the sliding and locking click makes her feel relieved.

She breathes easier, and her heartbeat calms.

He is a fool.

The rest of the ride, she notices Finnick avoiding her, sticking to Reid. Mags pats her hand comforting and offers her more coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support.
> 
> My tumblr's seevikifangirl, and any questions I'm more than happy to answer there!


	3. Interviews

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit longer, but it goes towards developping Annie's character a lot. It also sets up more of the Annie/Finnick relationship.

There is a peculiar look in the Tributes eyes she’s noticed. It’s like a half light, gaunt in the unsaid, perhaps not realized morality they all have; and a hopefulness that they will be crowned victor victorious.

She knows there is that same look in her eyes, though she’s resigned herself to death.  She’s seen it in Reid, and she hopes that hers in the only body they take back to Fourth foolishly.

‘Isn’t it astounding? ‘Their escort thrills, leading them through the lobby of the building where they’ll be staying.

Reid makes a noncommittal noise in confirmation, while Mags ignore the escort. Finnick is silent and she has the feeling he’s not forgiven her for the train. It’s silent in the elevator, and Annie wonders how her father is taking this.

Surely by now, he has found the letters. She wishes in the Arena she can leave a final message, but she hasn’t a clue how2 she would do that, nor how long she will last.

On the train, she watched the Reapings with Mags. Finnick and Reid were somewhere else, and the older woman, their first Victor, murmured a running commentary on those who were reaped.

Volunteers from First, a girl with fair hair named Rosé and a boy named Hyde. They are careers in a different way than she is. They are taken from a young age, and go through military training, that is much more specialized than District Two.

District Two are volunteers as well, the top girl and boy graduating from their rigorous brutal training, Mags tells her.  The male tribute is built like a tank, big, muscular and she has no reason to believe he couldn’t strangle her with one hand; Mags said his name was Smith. The girl is sleek and slim like a wild cat, and she wonders if the girl is more dangerous than her district partner.

District Three aren’t volunteers, nor are they careers though she assumes they probably have some form of training much like her own. They look slender, as if their exercise regime involves mostly cardio rather than weight training, and the boy looks like he can take several hits, and still stand. District three is known for thinking outside of the box, of being innovated and Tesla and Currie are not to be taken lightly just because of their limited physical prowess.

District Five’s tributes are children; the girl is thirteen with blonde hair is crying the entire time. The boy is twelve and he vomited the second he was reaped.

‘They aren’t going to make it.’ Mags had said sadly, clucking her tongue. She became making plans then, figuring that if she killed those two first, as humanely as she could it would save both of them from the bloodbath and from being tortured of hacked to death like the careers tended to do to the children who survived.

Annie’s death was eminent, the least she could do was ensure quick ones to children.

District Six had two morphlings, the male eighteen called Exe is slim, and she can needle tracks up his arm, while his partner is sixteen and her teeth are yellow. She doesn’t know how aware they are, and she wonders if the detox will kill them or the careers.

District Seven sent a girl only thirteen with braids and blue eyes. She looks sturdy, like she has survived harsh winters, but the boy is eighteen, tall and strong. He might be a contender.

District Eight had a pair of fourteen year olds, with matching grey eyes, and callouses on their hands from working in factories making fabrics. She’s read about them, how children leave school before reaping age and work at the machines weaving fabric for hours. There are accidents there, lost limbs and dead children falling to machines. That could explain the fire in their eyes, but there is also a tiredness about them.

District Nine have a brother and sister; and the elder sister, seventeen looks ashen as she holds her crying twelve year old brother.

‘They won’t survive.’ Mags said, watching the screen, ‘Siblings never do.’

District Ten, Eleven and Twelve’s tributes are all under sixteen, and all look gaunt as if food is scare.  No one wins from District Twelve, and it is rare for the other two as well.

She has asked Mags if there were files of the tributes that she could get, and it seemed like an odd question that the woman had never been asked. She had nodded and said she would try her best, and when Annie had retired to her room, there are twenty-four pale brown file folders with complete biographies of all the fellow tributes.

She had sorted out her own, and had Reid’s open reading it furiously, making jot notes of all his strengths and weaknesses.

He was born closer inland, about three hours from the coast, so while he is a strong swimmer, he isn’t one of the best in Fourth, his family is in the net trade and is middle class, better than the fishers on the coast. He’s strong with traps, and he favours his left hand.  He’s being trained with spear guns, and should be good with projectile weapons.

She is caught up in her lists and notes, going through with the finite dedication with all the other tributes, that she barely registers her door opening, and someone smelling more like coffee than sea air enter the threshold.

‘You should get some sleep before prep tomorrow.’ Finnick says, and she barely pauses not looking up comparing Reid’s chances against the boy, Marcus Pine from District Seven.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ She answers, not happy at his chances- Marcus seemed to have worked at a lumber camp for several years, causing very good upper arm strength, ‘No one wants me to win anyway.’

‘This doesn’t look like someone who doesn’t want to win.’ Finnick says, crossing to sit on the edge of the bed. ‘You’re the first person Mags can think of who wanted to study the other tributes in depth.’

‘I’m not going to win. ‘Annie says, jotting down another few notes, trying to figure out how Reid could win. ‘I’ll be dead within three days. I just want Reid to last longer.’

‘Why?’ She feels his eyes on her, and it burns.

When she meets his gaze she can see emotions, like anger and upset flicker with impassive detachment. She’s an oddity, perhaps his first tribute who’s accepted their death so passively.

‘He’s fourteen.’  She doesn’t break eye contact, trying to figure him out. The incident on the train, makes her think there is more than just pond scum in his brain, and his anger at how readily she’s given up intrigues her. ‘No one wins at fourteen.’

‘I did.’

‘Did you?’ He freezes, and she thinks it would acceptable to turn back to her notes and try to come up with a strategy; but she can’t bring herself to look away.

Finnick Odair is beautiful, something she has always known. He wears his beauty like a weapon, self-confident in his ability to get what he wants by his own looks, but there’s a hollowness to his eyes, as if he’s never left the arena and he relives the horrors nightly.

He is breathtaking and she has this sudden desire to mar him, ruin him until he is plain like she is. No one should be beautiful when they’re as stained crimson from the blood of children like he is.

‘Victor is only two letters away from victim.’ Annie murmurs, but even in her sotto voce it feels too loud. She can’t hear him breathing, and she realizes she has went too far, saying something she cannot to someone she does not know.

‘No.’ Finnick says sharply, his voice thick with an emotion that she can’t explain or understand and it makes every nerve in her body stand on edge. He stands abruptly, making his way to the door. He hovers there, as if there are words as hurtful as what she had said rest on the tip of his tongue, but instead he leaves.

She watches him go.

* * *

 

Prep is what she assumed it would be like, so many hands dyed different colours unnaturally poking and prodding her, taking hair off where she’s sure won’t be seen by anyone but her.

It’s fashionable in the Fourth to shave body hair from the legs and the arms, to be faster in the water, something the prep team is grateful for by the whispers she overhears. Apparently no other district does that and there is a lot of wax used on other tributes.

Her nails are coated in opal paint, and her hair, already long enough to cover her breasts, gets longer to hit her waist. They curl and knot it unnaturally, taking away the frizz and making her look paler like china.

From what they tell her, she is meant to be Loreley. A mythical woman, from before who lured  sailors to their death from her rock. People tried to take her away, and she called to the ocean to drown them all, and the waters swept her away, never to be seen again.

She’s never heard of Loreley, the legends and myths she’s finding out that the Capitol thing are ever present in District Four are things she’s never heard of, and she doubts many people have, so she’s not sure the off white dress made to look like she’s drowned men with straps falling off her shoulders and the thick rope belting it under her breasts is an authentic image.

She does concede that she looks like a very stylish shipwreck victim.

Reid is shirtless and tanned unnaturally bronze; there is a seashell necklace and some odd tribal tattoos going across his arm. He looks too young for this, but perhaps that is what his style team is trying to sell. The man he could become if he wins the game. It’s a fruitless attempt, by all calculations it will be Glessite, the girl from District Two who will win, Reid will make it to the top eight.

It’s what they did to Finnick, but Finnick was nearing fifteen, while Reid turned fourteen four weeks before.

They look incoherent, and she knows that District Four will bring home no victor.

‘Hold onto the sides.’ Mags advises, as they walk to their chariot. Mags’s cane is the only thing that makes a sound on the marble title floor. Finnick leads the way, not looking at any of them, his shoulders tight. He evidently has not forgotten or has forgiven what she said. ‘Smile and wave. If you look terrified, they’ll forget you.’

Everyone will forget them, Annie wants to say. But this time she holds her tongue. Finnick isn’t her mentor, but it would do her more harm than good to cross a second victor from her home. 

Reid is able to get in the open back chariot with ease, his low slung pants not making it hard for him to get up the three feet the chariolt platform is at.

Annie gathers her dress, long and ripped the off white silky material had picked up dust as she had made her way from the prep area to where all the tributes were waiting. The thick ropes crisscrossing around her ankles, keeping the soles of her sandals on her feet feel odd, and she stumbles.

Reid sees her nearly trip, and she’s positive someone, probably from District One, is watching her.  Reid offers his hand, but she’s lifted from behind, large hands spanning her waist and there is more sugar than coffee than sea air engulfing her.

When she turns back, there are still large hands steadying her and Finnick Odair is looking at her, like she’s never been looked at before. She forgets to breathe.

‘Make people want you.’ He tells her, and his tone is harsh though his words are civil. She flinches at the ice, but nods. He lets go and walks several steps away.

She keeps watching him, out of the corner of her eye, but she focusas her attention on Reid.

‘Smile.’ She tells him, offering him a hug, and that is when the chariots begin to move.

It is also how the Capitol gets their first glimpse of the District Four tributes. A boy, too young to be dressed the way he is trying to hold his smile on his face, and a girl drowning in white fabric holding him like he’s her anchor with ghosts in her eyes.

The Capitol doesn’t cheer for them; they mourn them instead.

* * *

 

Her interview is with Caesar Flickerman is one she is dreading. He’s a particularly sharp man, skilled at weaving stories and gathering angles that paint tributes in different ways, often influencing who makes it to the top eight.

She hasn’t the proof, but she is quite sure that the Capitol or at least the Gamemakers already have chosen the victor, and will do everything to ensure the winning.

That being said, Caesar Flickerman seems to be a kind man, if not one whom seems relatively ageless.

‘Annie Cresta,’ he rolls his tongue around her name, ‘Annie Cresta. You look stunning.’

She’s raised an eyebrow, because stunning in any definition of the word will never be used to define her. Not even the Capitol version of her. ‘I think that’s a matter of opinion, ‘she says, ‘but thank you.’

‘Now Annie, how do you like your stay in the Capitol?’

‘I haven’t seen much, but it is very colourful.’

Caesar Flickerman nods understandingly, ‘We do like our colour. And what, my dear girl, is your favourite part of the Capitol?’

She pauses and tilts her head, biting down on her lip as she considers her answer. She’s dwelled very heavily on the negatives of the Capitol, but saying the negativities would surely just kill her off quicker, and she wouldn’t be able to give Reid more time.

‘I suppose…the unity the Capitol gives us.’ Annie says thoughtfully, weighing each word carefully.

‘How so?’ Caesar leans in, like she’s telling a big secret that only he’s privy to hear.

‘Districts become…closer during the Hunger Games,’ she elaborates, ‘And the sense of community is stronger. It’s…nice.’

The crowd roars with approval, and she can see Mags nodding along in approval in the far right of her eye, nodding with approval.

‘Oh my Annie Cresta,’ Caesar Flickerman says softly, that it is almost not picked up by the microphone, ‘what a surprising girl you are.’

She hasn’t the idea how to answer it properly, so she ignores that; instead she twists her hands in the off white fabric until she loses circulation.

‘One final question, dear girl.’ Caesar says, his hands on hers, making her let go of the fabric. ‘Tell me, how do you plan on winning the Hunger Games?’

He asks everyone this, and Annie has had her answer prepared for a few days know, ever since the reaping, just two words but her mouth runs dry when she tries to say them.

It’s interesting to realize that knowing certain death is unavoidable, and accepting and planning on it, one can still be bone-chillingly petrified of it. Her mind falls into lists of all the things she has not done, and will never do because of the death sentence Panem.

She will never fall in love, she will never get married, she will never sail a boat as far as she can up the coast to see what exists beyond. The books she hasn’t read are endless and growing every day. There is so much she has never done.

‘I want my death to meaningful.’ She says quietly, not answering the question properly but giving an answer all together.

She is not their victor.

* * *

 

Training is not fun. In a large monochrome arena, there are various stations that everyone runs to immediately.

District One and Two want to show off and intimidate, while other Districts work furiously to familiarise themselves with weapons that could change their survival from minutes to hour, to possibly even days.

Last night she had told Reid to look at projectile weapons, and she could see him take her advice at the way he familiarized himself at the station.

She can see, high above them the Gamemakers and other officials judging them.  She floats from center to center observing the other tributes making notes in her head, but not touching any of the stations.

She knows her own skill level, and her training. In a fight, she can have the technique but not the strength or the speed. It will be rather one-sided.

The first night, Mags asks her what her plan is, if she’s really just willing to die.

It catches her off guard; the old woman has thus far being non-vocal about the way she’s gone about the Games, gathering the information requested, and providing tea and anecdotes of funny things when she was growing up at the beginning.

‘I’m not the person who becomes the victor.’ She tells Mags, handing around the hot mug, looking at the dark tea leaves float in the water before settling in the bottom. ‘I’m the person they forget. ‘

‘No one will forget you.’ Mags says firmly, and Annie smiles, a proper one, though small, for the first time since her name was drawn.

‘It’s just a game.’ She tells their first victor softly, remembering what she told her Father only a few days ago. ‘People lose games all the time.’

 _And games have rules_ , her trainers voices echo around her like a symphony of cacophony, _even if the rules are unwritten Annie you still have to follow them._

* * *

The assessment is not fun, it feels much like a test and which opened ended questions, are not really open ended at all.

They have to sit on the metal benches, waiting for their name to be called and then they have ten minutes to get assessed. This assessment will be key to survival rates. Luckily, they only have an hour to wait before Reid shaking slightly, has to leave the room.

There is no way of her knowing the scores he receives and his face is a blank slate when he exits. She figures the mortality rate has dawned on him during the night; and she hasn’t had time to comfort him.

She doesn’t know if comforting him is the right way to go, or if the harsh reality should embraced. She has never been relatively optimistic, preferring truth over well-meant lies to reassure a child. But what she prefers is not the same thing as what Reid prefers and she figures it might be easy to leave Reid to Finnick to sort out.

Though it might be more damaging; Finnick represents hope and a chance still to Reid. Annie isn’t cruel to take that hope away from him.

When she is escorted in, all the Gamemakers are having a feast in a lit area several feet away from where’s she supposed to demonstrate something.

There are weapons laid out and she goes over to look at them.  There are swords and knives, arrows and even a spear that looks an awful lot like a trident.  There are also some broken blades and weapons in the corner, as if during someone’s demonstration their pure force hacking one of the dummies apart broke a sword. Or three from the remains.

She bets it is Smith.

No one is really heeding her attention as she takes a slender piece of broken blade, with serrated edges in an uneven patterned due to its splinters and slips it up the long sleeve of her rather drab training uniform.

She has to impress them, but a clicking of the tongues makes her hurry to grab a hunting knife and show how poorly she throws.

It falls short of the dummy, by several feet and she can already feel bored disappointment in their eyes.

‘Is that all Miss Cresta?’ The head Gamemaker dressed in purple with a large plume of red hair calls, swirling wine in a crystal flute.

‘I-‘

All games have rules, but are unwritten rules really rules?

Annie walks to them and they pay her no mind. It’s not until the shard of the broken blade she took earlier is in her fist, cutting lines into skin by how hard she’s gripping it is embedded in the table beside the head Gamemaker’s fist, do they stop their idle conversation and look at her.

They hadn’t deemed her a threat, until she was beside them, the blade an inch deep into mahogany wood and her green eyes piercing into them.

‘That is all.’ She says politely. ‘Thank you.’

She lets go of the blade and exits quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr is seevikifangirl.tumblr.com


	4. The Game Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part one of Annie's games. It's got a bit of gore.

It’s a six; she’s mediocre, average, in the middle. She knew it going in, and she has to figure out why it burns so much right now.

A six means she’ll survive long enough to be taken out third or fourth.

Reid gets a seven and refuses to tell her, Finnick or Mags what he did.

But she’s never come off as average; she’s either under performing in every physical aspect, or above average, leaning towards brilliance when it comes to cognitive thought.

But the thing is, the Games aren’t something where brains really work, no it’s a blood bath, physical victors or ones who are clever and fast win, and truly Annie hates running and she’s not fond of swimming either.

She only learned because in Four if you don’t know how to swim, you’re just a laughing stock, being shunted off to the side. Jonah taught her rigorously how to swim, in the cold water lungs burning and shivering she did laps, to appease her father who’s fear of losing his daughter caused his over protective tendencies to run wild.

She doesn’t sleep before; she doesn’t think she can, even though Mags sits on the edge of her bed, playing with her hair in a comforting motion that just makes her want to cry for her mother that she never met, and her father that she will never see.

‘Will it hurt?’ She asks, feeling childish and stupid. How would Mags know? Victors are more than anything survivors, and survivors by definition do not die. She’s seen the tapes, Mags killed four tributes, only the first one did she watch them die.

But she needs some reassurance that it will be quick, that it will not be painful. She needs to hear that, to keep her sane because her heart feels like a jack hammer, beating furiously, and she’s come up with half a dozen half cooked plans of just killing herself now to avoid being a spectacular.

‘I don’t know.’ Mags says truthfully, ‘I would like to think so.’

‘So it’ll hurt.’ She feels saline drip down her face, and she doesn’t move to wipe away the tear tracks that are created. ‘Okay.’

‘I don’t want to die.’ It’s a confession, a secret whisper in the dark, right before she goes to her death that she needs to tell. It’s a trickle of truth, that she’s kept bottled up inside, because if she doesn’t think about the lists, and the plans she has to face the fear that she’s going to die in less than a week, maybe tomorrow.

Other eighteen year old girls were celebrating passing their Reapings easily, maybe marrying finally now that they knew they were safe, or deciding what to do with their education. She doesn’t know.

She had thought one day, that she would archive. That they would let in the central wharf at the big library, made of old stone and covered ivy and let her make lists and archive and research. She might fall in love with a worker there, she might have had a family. All of her lists ended at eighteen, and after that she thought in abstract, in maybes.

‘I know.’ Mags says and it doesn’t make her feel better.

She cries as quietly as she can, while Mags holds her gently, stroking her hair until the morning light when she’s made to change.

It is light pants the shade of dirt, and a darker short sleeved shirt, and Annie forces herself to think objectively. Now is not the time to lose her head, instead she thinks. What one wears is something that can identify the arena. 

It’s a forest, something like that, with the shades of brown. Exposed dirt, not a lot of greenery, probably very rocky and no water.  The shoes look like hiking boots, so she assumes that it will be a lot of climbing.

This is a physical arena, just another reason why she’ll die.

She passes Finnick who is staring at her, with his coffee mug like he’s watching a dead girl come back to life.

‘I’m sorry.’ She says, not wanting him to remember her as the girl who made him mad. It doesn’t matter in the long run, he won’t remember her after this year. Tributes are a dime a dozen, canon fodder before the victor comes out.

‘Do you have a district token?’ Mags asks, leaning on her while her cane makes noise on the tile.

She nods, it was the easiest decision. It’s a small pendant on a gold chain hanging under the shirt, tucked into her bra. There are photographs of her mother and father, she’s always worn it.

When she dies, she’ll have her family with her.

‘Be strong.’ Mags says, before she has to leave and she’s injected with her tracker.

She has to breathe.

If she can’t do that, then she might as well just step off the platform and self-destruct.

* * *

 

The sun blinds her eyes, and she has to blink several times.

She was right. It’s mostly dirt and rocks, in a cliff arena. It’s rocky and there are some trees and foliage on the white grey cliffs that are going to be where she assumes most of the bloodbath is.

Reid is to her right, looking at everyone carefully.

District Five is to her left, and the girl is still crying while the boy looks so pale. She’s made her decision.

She closes her eyes and tries to breathe and she knows District Five has no training. She knows what she has to do, and it’s horrible and makes her stomach sick, but if it is not her, it will be someone else and it will be painful.

That is what she says to try to make it sit better in her stomach.

The canon goes off, and she races left.

No one notices her sprint until she’s tackled the boy, and her hands on his throat and she’s squeezing tightly while keeping all her body weight on his chest. He struggles, and sturggles but she’s eighteen and knows how to do this, at least theoretically.

His face becomes blue and he loses consciousness after a minute, and she’s heard a canon go off, but she can’t look up because she can feel a pulse.

It takes about two minutes for strangulation to be affective and cause death.

She’s counting down in her head, while there are screams and she can’t feel his pulse and a canon goes off. Annie runs to the cliffs and tries to climb, and not vomit.

She’s never thought she could kill someone. But she has, and she wants to cry but the tears aren’t coming.

She pulls herself up to a ledge, a hidden cranny that is perfect for someone small to hide. It’s not a good one, it’s just a small one. She can see the Cornucopia and she counts the body there.

Seven people are dead.

Seven, and it’s the first three hours.

She still can’t cry or vomit or do anything but make lists. Lists are safe, she has to think and plan.

Where is Reid?

Find Reid.

Get a knife, or something small.

She doesn’t want her hands to kill someone ever again.

She can remember the pale clammy feeling of his skin, the sweat and the heartbeat getting fainter and fainter. The look of desperation in his pretty blue eyes and how much fear there was. He was only twelve.

He was only twelve and she doesn’t know his name.

‘Remember his name please.’ It comes out broken, and it was a thought that became words. She doesn’t know who she is speaking to, but someone, someone out there must remember him. He has to be remembered because she doesn’t want to forget but she doesn’t know his name.

She doesn’t know any of them, and she’s killed a twelve year old boy.

‘ _Please._ ’

When it becomes dark, she can see the death broadcasted.  District Five is gone, and District Nine’s boy is dead. District Twelve and District Elven are all gone.

She wishes their names were projected. Instead there are seven of the twenty four dead. She remembers last years, ten died in the initial blood bath.

She doesn’t sleep; instead she watches the artificial sky flicker.

She’s still a right off, but maybe she did some good.

She was trying to do good.

It doesn’t make her feel good at all.

* * *

 

It’s the third day when she’s ventured out of her little cranny to make it to the Cornucopia. She hasn’t seen any of the Careers, and District Ten is dead, as well as the girl from District Eight and the girl from District Three.

There are thirteen of them left, Reid is still alive.

This is all going to plan, and if the plan continues she will be dead by the end of the day. This means she has to leave and find someone.

She figures the best way is just to be visual.

She thinks she can hear Finnick Odair yelling at her that she’s an idiot, but that’s wishful thinking, and she doesn’t think he has a proper say in how she chooses to live or die.

No one approaches her when she gets to the Cornucopia, but everything is very heavily ransacked, and there are only small knifes, more like steak knives with serrated edges and dull blades.

It’s weighted oddly in her palm, and she doesn’t get time to wonder why when there’s this loud cry and she falls to the ground, with what feels like a knife nicking the side of her.

It’s the girl from Nine, her eyes wild and there’s blood on her, like she was hugging a corpse-her brother, Annie remembers, her brother died on the first day.

Before the girl from Nine can twist her sword-it’s a short sword, and her grip is wrong, and why did the girl think she could yield a sword when she looks like she’s never touched a weapon in her life?-Annie  grabs hold to the lapel of her Nine’s shirt and kicks her hard in the stomach.

It winds her enough, that she can get out from under her.

‘I’m sorry.’  She says, and it doesn’t seem to reach the girl who’s starving and there are tear tracks on her face mixed with dust, mud and blood.

She runs, and she knows now how training, thirteen years of it build muscle memory, even if she’s too slow and her technique isn’t anything good.  The girl leans too far too fast, not using her foot to pivot, leaving the back of her knees exposed making it easy for her to get behind and stomp on them, bringing the girl to her knees.

She has one hand tight on the girl’s hair, when she can hear a canon go off repetitively.

More dead.

The girl screams in anger, and tries to turn to stab her the sword.

She doesn’t close her eyes and her hand doesn’t waver as she slits the girl’s throat. She holds her upright, while she bleeds out.

‘I’m sorry.’

She’s not forgiven, when the lights go out of her eyes and the canon goes off again.

She’s killed two people.

She has to think back to how many times the canon went off.  Twice.

Two more dead, is Reid one of them?

Three dead today. It’s slowing down. There are ten left.

There’s rustling in the grass, and Annie huddled against one side of the Cornicopia, trying to think clearly, trying to make a list, but the lists aren’t working because all she can think about is two are dead. She’s killed two people.

Two people are dead.

She clutches the knife already stained crimson from the girl from Nine’s blood so tightly, there’s an imprint of the handle in her palm.

Is this her death?

Is this how she is going to die, huddled in mud and blood like a coward?

She’s killed two people, to die hiding is an insult to them.

She stands and everything aches, she needs to eat but she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t think the food will carry any taste.

There’s a boy, with what looks like a harpoon gun on a fishing boat holstered on his shoulder stumbling and clutching his head.

It’s Reid.

‘Reid.’ She exhales. ‘Reid.’

She runs, she trips and falls, but she catches herself and the look on Reid’s face is one empty and she realizes that he may not be Reid anymore.

He may have lost himself.

She stops short.

‘Reid?’ It’s tentative, and the blood on his face is dried and she doesn’t think it’s his own, but he’s clutching his right ear, and there’s blood on his arm.

Oh no.

Oh no, no, no.

‘Annie?’ He sounds hoarse, but he doesn’t aim the gun at her and she nods, and she wonders if the pressure building behind her eyes means she will finally be able to cry.

He hugs her, and he smells like sweat and blood, feces and something else. Something’s wrong, more than anything.

‘I thought you were dead.’ He tells her.

She smiles wirily, ‘Still here.’

They need to move out of the clearing, towards the cliff. Reid’s alive and that means the plan is working. That means the plan can still work.

‘What happened?’ She asks, pulling his hands from his ear, to see most of it gone.  She can only blink, and cover it with her own hands applying pressure.

‘Killed District Two’s girl.’ Reid says nonchalantly. ‘And uh…well her partner didn’t really…’

‘You need bandages. If your mentor would be so kind to send some bandages and maybe disinfectant that would be so helpful.’ She mutters loud enough to get Reid to give her a small smile.

‘Whose still alive?’ He asks her, and she makes him sit so she can pour her water over the stub. He winces and she mutters a small apologies.

‘Us, District Six-‘

‘No the guy what’s his name…Exe, he offed himself this morning.’  Reid tells her, as there’s another canon.

‘Eight or nine then.’ She says, ‘I didn’t hear Exe’s canon.’

‘I don’t think they want to do it. He slit his wrists.’ Reid says as they watch a tiny silver capsule fall down towards them.

Reid catches it, and twists it open, to find white cotton bandages, a tube of disinfectant and a note in cramp print _“Will this suit Madame’s needs?”._

Reid laughs.

‘He’s a terror.’ She tells him, knowing full well that Finnick and Mags could hear them. ‘He should have sent this early.’

‘To be fair I was kinda running for my life.’

‘It’s going to hurt.’ She says, squeezing a dollop of disinfectant onto her hands, ‘I’m sorry.’

Reid shrugs, and she supposed nothing will hurt more than getting your ear partially chopped off.  She gingerly applies it but by the way Reid clenches his teeth she knows it hurts.

She wraps his ear and they sit in the cranny.

‘Have you seen the river yet?’ Reid asks her, when she shakes her head he describes it. ‘It makes me think of home. It’s massive, goes around the entire arena. It’s like an island only it’s not.’

‘Do you think we could swim in it?’ she wonders, if it were her she probably have put something in the water, fish breed to eat them or something like that. She isn’t a particularly creative person, more logical than anything.

‘No clue.’ He shrugs.

At the end of the night, the deaths are broadcast. District Nine, the Boy from District Six, the Girl from District One, the Girl from District Three and the Girl from District Seven.

There are seven left.

‘Top Eight.’ She whispers to Reid.

‘Wow.’

* * *

 

No one dies for the next two days. It seems like a pause where everyone people are licking their wounds, and gathering strength.

Annie and Reid eat and rest up.

The morning of the third day, the world shakes and the cliff walls seem to fall down on them.

They run.

It passes like a heartbeat, but the earthquake has done its damage and the ground is torn up into bits, and the rocks that already made it uneven and easy to trip and twist an ankle seemed to have multiplied.

A canon has gone off.

‘Why would they do that?’ Reid asks, holding his harpoon gun cautiously, looking around.

‘We were boring.’ She answers. ‘It’s been six days. ‘

They begin to travel around the arena cautiously, trying to find a safe spot not ruined by the earthquake, when the broadcast comes; it’s the boy from district three who died in the earthquake.

‘District three is gone.’ Reid says, and Annie nods.

It happens fast, she doesn’t know how they both missed it, but she thinks it’s the silence of them mourning the boy they don’t know who might have been crushed by rocks that made them not think, but the careers descend.

The girl from Two grabs Annie roughly  thin knife at her throat, and she freezes, not willing to die like this, and it’s not until the boy from District One has wrestled the harpoon gun from Reid, does she understand. He’s holding Reid like a guillotine and she struggles and screams ,trying to get closer trying to stop.

She wants to close her eyes, she wants to not think of this, she wants-she wants-

The Boy from Two has a machete, its blade is pristine, and sharp, like he’s take much care for it, and it’s not something he found in the Cornucopia, no this, like the harpoon gun was a gift. The scales were tipped.

The scales were always tipped but this wasn’t supposed to happen.

This wasn’t the plan.

This wasn’t it.

Not like this no.

‘Reid!’ She screams, as he hacks away at his throat. Blood, ligaments, skin and spit go everywhere her stomach turns and she want to gag but all she can do is scream and feel the cold steel of a blade around her neck. ‘ _Reid_!’

Each time he swings, Reid’s neck gets cut deeper. It’s not clean.

It’s not clean and she’s screaming, she’s screaming and kicking and no, no not like this.

This wasn’t in the list.

This wasn’t it.

Nothing, nothing, nothing said that Two would execute people. There was nothing there. He was blood thirsty, but not….not barbaric.

Not like this.

‘ _Oh_.’

Reid’s head rolls like a ball once, before stopping and she can’t stop staring.

Her legs give way and she falls slack to the ground, reaching out to touch his head.

Why is it off?

Why is it not…

Why?

Reid is dead.

A foot crushes his features, and it’s the girl. The girl who has the knife, the girl who held her back. The girl who made her watch.

She made her watch.

She pounces, nails out and she scratches her , biting her and her nails cut the girl’s corneas, and it’s so fast.

So fast and she has to go.

She has to go.

She has to take Reid and go.

But Reid is already in pieces and how do you put together a person?

 


	5. The Game After

Dead, dead, dead.

                                                                                                  Reid is dead.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Off with his ~~head.~~

Gone like sunshine.

                                                                                                                  Run fast Annie.

_Why?_

Dead, dead, dead.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Who is dead?

 _Mama_.

Everyone’s dead Annie.

                                                                                                                           You’re dead Annie.

_Run._

                                                                                                                                                                                          where?

Run like a mouse who needs a house.

_Why do I need a house?_

Run,                                                                                                         run,                                                                                                                   run.

Everyone’s dead.

                                                                                                                                Being d e a d sounds fun.

                                                    What’s dead?

Reid’s head is off like a deadhead of a flower.

one _pop_ and it’s all gone.

                                                                                                                                                                                                         Gone, gone, gone.

Everything is gone.

Everything is W

                                                R

                                                                O

                                                                                N

                                                                                                G

Why is everything wrong?

Because Reid-

                                Who?

                                                                                                                                           Reid, Annie. Reid. Remember?

_No don’t remember_

**don’t think.**

Run, little mouse,                                                                                                                run little mouse.

Your house has been destroyed by

                                                                                                                     what

Something happened.

                                                                                                                Bad right?

No.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                              nope.

Run little mouse.

                                                                                                         reid

_off with their heads scream the queen off with their heads_

Oh no something fell.

Oh no.

          No

                  No

                         No

                                 No

                                           No

                                                  No

                                                          No

                                                               No

                                                                       No

                                                                                No

                                                                                         No

                                                                                             No

                                                                                                    No

                                                                                                              No

                                                                                                                     Reid

                                                                                                                            No

                                                                                                                                     No

                                                                                                                                              No

                                                                                                                                                     No

                                                                                                                                                                No

                                                                                                                                                                         No

                                                                                                                                                                                    No

                                                                                                                                                                                               No

                                                                                                                                                                                                     No

                                                                                                                                                                                                           No

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  No

                                                                                                                                                                                                                          No

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    No

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         No

_Yes_

                                             

 

* * *

There’s blood on her fingers, her own, she thinks, maybe { _don’t think, don’t think don’t think please don’t think_ } someone else’s, but it’s old, and turning brown the way dried blood is.

Her throat hurts, like she’s made noise for days, but she doesn’t remember and all she knows is she can hear the water, not real water, not the water in Four {he must have swam in the oceans or the lakes or the don’t think don’t think don’t think please god don’t think}, but it’s the main water source.

There are so many silver capsules around her, and she knows what these mean.  { _she’s not dead. this is wrong, so wrong, wrong wrong. why didn’t people stick to the plan?_ } She’s still in the Arena, and she needs to think.

{ _don’t think don’t think don’t think don’t think don’t think oh god don’t think_ }

She needs to make a list, but there’s no paper, no pen, how can she make a list?

{ _lists aren’t good anyway. you made a list before and what happened-don’t think don’t think don’t think_ }

‘Fuck.’ The word feels weird, and it comes out like sandpaper has destroyed her throat. She’s heard the workers say it, when a catch gets out, or when something doesn’t fit properly. When something is broken, and cussing is something that is dirty and wrong, but she’s never felt something  fit the situation so properly.

She has to fix this.

{ _can’t fix this can’t. how do you fix de-don’t think don’t think don’t think_ }

Bread and water are in the silver capsules, and notes, from Mags and from Finnick, telling her to be strong, to focus, to not give up.

{ _he’s just a little lost mouse without a house because the earthquake and the big bad wolf stole her don’t think don’t think don’t think_ }

Why is Finnick sending notes, that doesn’t make sense. He doesn’t like her, and she doesn’t like him, also he’s Reid’s-

She stares at her hands, his blood, or her own or maybe one of those she’s killed she’s doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter whose blood it is, it just matters that there is blood on her hands. She’s not pure, not in the biblical sense, no that was gone in a messy attempt when she was sixteen with a boy she doesn’t want to remember, but she never thought she would be damned the way she is now.

She can go on, she knows more words to describe her. She had made her peace; she was the one who was supposed to die.

{ _don’t think don’t think oh god i’m sorry don’t think please don’t think_ }

But she’s still breathing. She’s still breathing and Reid isn’t.

{ _stop stop stop stop_ }

Reid isn’t breathing.

{ _don’t think don’t don’t please god don’t think_ }

He’s dead.

{ _oh god no stop oh please stop oh stop_ }

They-the careers killed him. They beheaded him.

{ _no no no no no stop no no stop for the love of god please stop_ }

He was fourteen.

{ _stop stop fucking stop please oh god stop thinking no no please oh god please no no please_ }

He was only a child.

‘How long?’ She croaks, transfixed at her skin, trying to remember how she got here. It’s all a blank, but she’s near the water.

She’s not really expecting an answer, but it comes in a silver capsule, in fine handwriting.  Three days, and no one is dead.

No one can find her either, the earthquake has changed the terrain and evened it out for everyone.

It makes sense, changing the landscape that way.  Human nature is so unpredictable, it’s why these games, barbaric and horrible are considered so fascinating, she reckoned.   Blood thirsty killers can come out of the mildest people, it’s the survival instinct. Changing the landscape, changes the game, makes it more exciting, more exhilarating.

She’s on the edge of the river, the outside is covered in rocks, but it’s glass, like the glass in the boats her family manufactures holding back the gallons of water. It feels cool to the touch, and she slips in and floats, maybe the water will wash off some of the blood.

{ _but it’s all you have of reid don’t think don’t think don’t fucking think_ }

‘Shut up.’ She clutches her head.

{ _no no don’t think it’s bad to think it will hurt and hurt because you weren’t strong enough you let him die you let reid die you failed the pan_ }

‘Shut _up_.’

She dives, trying to drown out the cacophony in her head over top static and thoughts that are undoing her as she stands.

It’s clear, there’s no fish, no mutts either. She wonders where the mutts are…probably  somewhere on land, the river circles the arena, only to act as a source of water. It isn’t that deep either, only three or four metres, nothing compared to those for dive for pearls in Four.

They look so pretty, the pearls when they’re shined sand polished in markets. Her father bought her a pearl each year; it’s something you do in Four. Each year, on a daughter’s birthday, her father buys her a single pearl, and her mother strings it in a necklace, so when she gets married she has a pearl necklace.

Her mother died, so Jonah bought and strung her necklace, and she was positive it would with eighteen pearls.

‘What do I do now?’

She’s doesn’t know, it’s not in the plan. She wasn’t supposed to get into the top eight. It doesn’t make sense, she’s not physical or quick. All she does is make lists and plan and think.

The Hunger Games is not what she can win.

{ _games games let’s play a games. games have rules. rules what are the rules?_ }

‘People change in the arena.’ She repeats the words her teachers said, ‘It’s the dark part of the human psyche. People detach themselves; Victors sometimes claim out of body experiences, that the adrenaline caused them to do it. Anything goes in the Arena.’

Anything goes in the Arena. Beheading, sex, she remembers one year where a girl from Nine slept with the Career pack to keep her safe until the girls from the pack killed her, alliances, anything really.  If things got too boring, the Gamemakers made it interesting, like with the earthquake.

An earthquake was the reason why the boy from Three died.

If an earthquake can happen…

{ _anything goes in the arena_ }

Someone used the Arena as a weapon once, the Victor from Twelve. The force field, it ricocheted the blade.

The Gamemakers are using glass, the type she knows of, because Jonah taught her how to escape from a capsize boat. You need a hammer, something sharp, just to crack to relieve the pressure. She knows the weak spot, you just hammer until there.

But she doesn’t have anything, but rocks. She had a knife, once, but she lost it somewhere, and she’s not going to leave her little hiding hole to find it.

Besides, it’s probably illegal.

{ _it’s not not in the rules though, you read them all remember?}_

It’s a bad idea, one that might not work. What is she planning anyway, to drown everyone and herself? End the games with no Victors?

She laughs, and it echoes around the empty reservoir.

‘Stupid, you’re so stupid Annie.’  It’s not going to work.

 But well, she’s not going to live either.

What’s the harm in trying?

The harm, she tries to summon a list, ‘The harm….the harm….well you’re dead anyway.’

What is the harm?

‘None.’

But she doesn’t have any tools. She can’t ask for a hammer, she’s not ‘Finnick Odair’ no, no she’s ‘the longshot.’

And long shots and underdogs, never really win.

So what can she do? She doesn’t have any tools or weapons, all there is is just ‘rocks. Rocks everywhere. Oh _. Sharp_ rocks.’

It might be pointless, but she hasn’t a better plan and she’s never been without a plan.

 ‘If you don’t plan Annie, you can drown.’ Her father said that over and over again, when he was talking about mergers, and how some new materials for the boats might not work without testing, so you mustn’t build a boat without testing all the materials before, individually.

She really should have a plan, a backup if she had for some reason managed to live past Reid. She was positive she would die; everything logically said she would die.

One foot after the other, she hauls rocks decorating the glass containing the water.

‘It looks like the ocean.’

The rocks, all sharp, big and small drop and cause ripples and waves.  It reminds her of being on one of the boats during a sudden storm that wasn’t forecasted, and Jonah roped her in against him, and they stood on the bow, watching the waves.

‘I miss you.’

‘You can’t be afraid of the ocean,’ Jonah said, she was only four or five, and never allowed out during a storm. ‘The ocean doesn’t care if you’re afraid. So don’t fear it. Respect it.’

Her fingers ache, and she is tired, but she keeps on gathering rocks. Eventually one will work.

The silver capsules come like bombs, hitting her, splashing into the water, demanding she doesn’t ignore them.

‘Go _away._ ’ She bats them, tosses them. She doesn’t want them. She doesn’t want their help. How can they help when they are the reason why Reid is dead?

Eventually they stop.

The last rock is heavy, and weighs more than she does, and with it she falls into the water.

She wonders if someone is waiting to press her canon.

Not yet.

The ocean doesn’t care.

It’s a routine now; she already found the sweet spot in the glass. Now it’s just to break it.

{ _what happens after you flood  the Arena? what are you going to do next?_ }

Drown them all.

It doesn’t shock her, the maliciousness in her voice that echoes around her, loudly overtop every other voice. It is stable like her heart, the answer to the obvious question.

Drown them all.

It’s the seventy-fifth rock, after a day of hammering that causes cracks in the glass. It is hairline cracks at first, but the spread as the water pushes, and breathes and swallows.

She surfaces, and tries to swim away from the fracturing wall, waiting for the several hundred thousand liters of water to push like a tidal wave, submerging the arena whole.

She doesn’t want the glass to cut it her.

It takes an hour, but she is swept away by the current. The water overpowering everything and she doesn’t fight the current she lets it sweep over her and take her.

You can’t fight the ocean.

She wonders the cameras can see her smile, if this is what winning feels like or if this when she damned herself.

She stops wondering when the girl who made her watch is clinging to a tree branch screaming for help.

Apparently they don’t teach careers how to swim in rip currents.

They should.

She cuts diagonally, strong strokes move her closer, and the girl sees her.  Help is written in her eyes, and it looks like she doesn’t recognize her.

That’s fine. Betrayal always hurts more when it is from someone whom you are supposed to trust.

Her hands wrap around the girl’s waist, and lets herself sink.

Their combined bodyweight makes them sink, and the girl is struggling, panicking limbs going everywhere.

Annie lets go of her waist, and swims above, hands wrapping around her throat and she stares at the girl from One’s brown eyes, unflinchingly.

It doesn’t take long for the light to leave, and Annie lets go.

When she surfaces, she hears the cannon.

* * *

 

The water calms into a murky lake after a day, and she preserves her strength by floating, letting the current take her wherever she wishes.

There was a second cannon, and she found out that the boy from Seven, the longshot outside of the careers, drowned by himself.

Or maybe the career boys were able to swim and drown him.

It doesn’t matter really who killed him, as long as they are dead.

It’s funny. She didn’t want to win, but she didn’t want to die. So she made lists, lots and lots of lists to make sure she wouldn’t regret her young life. She checked off every box but one; it seemed stupid to make herself fall in love with someone only to die in the Games, and she wasn’t reaped well she might be stuck with someone whom she doesn’t give a damn about.

And now, she’s in the top three.

She wonders how many people have lost money because of her.

She laughs.

The Arena is silent.

* * *

 

It would be more dramatic, if she found Smith from Two last. But she’s rather for the anticlimax, because he’s weak and holding onto a tree branch uprooted from the flood.

There are words on the tip of her tongue that burn because she swallows them. All the books she has read have told her that the best villains, the most dangerous ones, are the ones who don’t say anything at all.

They are silent, they are deadly and they do not explain.

{ _when did you become the villain?_ }

It would be poetic justice to behead him, but all she has is her hands.

She goes under the water, silent and unseen.

He’s too weak to protest or stop her as she pushes him down, down as far as she can take him. There’s not horror in his eyes while he watches her drown him.

Just morbid acceptance.

* * *

 

The boy from District One wears himself out fighting her. All his muscle mass doesn’t help him, because he can’t float.

Her hands on his shoulder blades and he fights her to his last breathe, frantic and angry.

She has won.


	6. The Interview

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, we're almost done!
> 
> And this is rather short, but I couldn't make it longer.
> 
> I am also so sleep deprived, it's not funny.
> 
> The only good thing about almost being done, is that I'll be able to post the oneshots and drabbles from Finnick's perspective of Annie's Games

They drug her.  It’s not needed, she’s pliant in their hands, letting Finnick Odair anchor himself to her and placing all her weight on hip, when they roll up her sleeve and inject something into her veins.

* * *

 

The first time she wakes up, she is disoriented. Florescent lights flicker in a pattern that makes her think she is having a seizure and the smell of bleach; disinfectant and cleanliness overwhelm the scents of perfume.

It takes her time to put herself together.

{ _as much as you can killer girl_ }

She was won the Games. She wasn’t supposed to. She won and Reid…Reid he died.

She screams, and the nurses come and inject her again.

* * *

 

The second time she wakes up, she knows where she is immediately.   Her mentor, Mags, is sitting by her side, a book in her hands and when she sees Annie is awake, she marks her page with a duck feather and looks at her with sad eyes.

‘You’re awake.’

‘No.’ Annie whispers, ‘No I’m not.’

{ _let this be a dream oh god please let this be a dream let this be a fucking nightmare don’t let this be real please oh please oh please oh please_ }

Mags doesn’t say anything, she just holds her hand, for three hours while Annie tries to find herself.

{ _the little one from five is where the first bit of your soul went_ }

When Finnick appears, his face is again something she thinks carved out of marble.  He looks unnaturally beautiful in the florescent light, and she remembers, that marble can be meant to mean crazy, and that if you tap correctly at the weak spot, it shatters easier than anything.

‘I’m sorry.’ He says, not moving from the doorstep.

She cries.

* * *

 

Somewhere along the lines, she can’t tell when waking and sleeping differentiate, all she knows is the Games are over, and everyone is dead but her.

It’s such a short word, fitting that everyone who died had lived at most eighteen years. She has been given a lifetime in comparison.

She tries to make lists, but they come undone.  She can start them, but  everything after step one, think becomes step two, watch Reid die, and all she can do is scream.

And the girl from two is making her watching, cold hands on her skin that feel odd, restraining her neck for a shot, and oh, oh not again not now. She won’t watch Reid die again.

Her nails curl and she sees the girl from two, blinking with her eyes and it’s so, so easy to just scratch corneas, make her bleed only the light shifts and it’s a doctor screaming, holding his eyes.

* * *

 

She wakes up, and her wrists are chained to the bed and Finnick Odair is passed out in the cot beside her. That’s new.

‘Are you calm?’ Mags asks from her chair.

She thinks.

The drug is out of her system, she wonders who made them stop.

The pain around her wrists hurts, and she’s in a hospital that smells artifically clean.

She has won the Seventieth Hunger Games.

She doesn’t feel the pinpricks of tears, she feels tired and exhausted.

‘Yes.’ She says.

When Finnick wakes up, Mags leaves to tell someone that they are both awake, and the silence is thick.  It feels like he has something to say, but he doesn’t say anything.

No nurses come in, and it’s a nice moment of silent.

‘I wanted you to win.’

She can’t breathe, her nice day dream of Four, with her father shattered, and she looks at him, wide eyed and in horror.

‘I wanted you to win just so you would know that dying young isn’t something to be proud of.’ It comes out rushed, and bitter. ‘But I didn’t want this.’

‘Why?’ She sounds like a child, small, and betrayed. ‘Why would you want me to win?’

‘Would you rather I wanted you to die?’ Finnick asks, angry and monotone. He sounds tired, like the exhaustion of the aftermath of the Games, doing whatever he does.

‘Yes.’

‘You know the thing about the Games,’ Finnick says conversationally, his voice tight and his green marble eyes no longer glossy, ‘is that no one wins by chance. The Victor is the one with the best survival instinct. You were never going to die in the Arena.’

He leaves before she can form any sort of rebuttal, and she screams out of frustration more than anger because her hands are chained and all she wants to do is throw something at his head.

{ _you never wanted to die anyway_ }

* * *

 

Her nails are cut, and the nurses have begrudgingly unchained her hands, though only when Mags or Finnick are present.  They don’t trust her to not hurt herself, or someone else.

She’s heard the murmurs, they’ve been calling her mad, that the Arena broke her, and Victors aren’t supposed to be breakable.

{ _mags sits in the corner of the room, able to see everything and everyone finnick holds his cutlery like weapons the arena broke us all so why are you saying im the broken one_ }

Finnick is the one who is leaning against the wall, his arms crossed and his eyes watching her like she’s prey. It’s a different way he looks at her, than the nurses and doctors who look at her like she’s mad, and the way they look at her like a Victor. It’s different from Mags who looks at her like she understands, and she wishes she didn’t.

She doesn’t know how to deal with the way he looks at her, so she files it away to something to think of later, hopefully before they drug her again, like they’ve taken to when Finnick or Mags aren’t around to stop them, apparently her scream is upsetting the orderlies.

It’s her interview, and then she can leave back to Four, and hide in her stacks of books and make lists while her father tells her stories.

{told you dad not to worry its just a game}

She’s dressed in pure white and its gather innocently.  The prep team has done little make up, and the violet shadows under her eyes add the accent colour.  They don’t make her wear shoes, and there’s a daisy or two braided into her loose plait.

She looks innocent. Like they’ve forgotten she’s murdered five people in cold blood, three with her bare hands.

‘Better than me.’

She blinks, Finnick must have been talking, and she realizes while she’s been staring at the mirror, the prep team has left her and Finnick alone.

‘When I won.’ He clarifies, ‘I wore-‘

‘A net.’ She finishes. ‘Rosa had photographs.’

He hadn’t mentored last year, instead one of the others, Dylan who had won the Forty-Seventh Games had, she remembers thinking Rosa would have been disappointed that she wouldn’t have been able to spend time with Finnick Odair.

‘Really?’ He says after a beat, with a note of incredulous disbelief.  ‘I was fourteen.’

She shrugs, ‘We were thirteen. ‘

‘Still…it’s better than what I had to wear. You look…wholesome.’ It sounds like he’s trying not to laugh, and she glares at him, through her fringe in the mirror.

‘I killed five people.’

‘I killed seven.’ Finnick answers, ‘I wasn’t dressed in white.’

‘I read somewhere that white was the colour of mourning.’ She says quietly, moving from the mirror. The soft fabric swirls around her legs, ‘Maybe it’s symbolic like that.’

Finnick laughs and it cold and humourless. He doesn’t tell her what’s funny, but instead leads her to the stage, Mags is sitting in front, where the other Victors are seated.

She tries to memorize their faces, they’re part of an exclusive club she’s now privy to membership, and they’ve all paid in blood that isn’t theirs.

{ _you can all go to hell together itll be a great party_ }

The lights blind her, and she winces.

‘Miss Annie Cresta’ Caesar Flickerman says, and there’s sadness in his voice, as if he is mourning her win as well.  ‘Miss Annie Cresta, our newest Victor.’

There is applause but it is short, and polite, doing only to keep face. She knows, and they know that she was not their chosen Victor.

‘I must be honest Annie, I’m surprised-but delighted- to see you sitting here.’

‘I am too.’ It comes out too soft, and breathy, like she’s gasping for air, drowning in the hot lights and the angry eyes glaring at her, mad that she survived.

‘Tell us about the flood Annie, it certainly seemed to change the tide in your favour, so to say.’

{ _they killed reid they killed him and i wanted them all to suffer_ }

‘I missed the ocean.’  Annie says.

Caesar Flickerman nods in understanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and giving kudos and all that!
> 
> My tumblr's seevikifangirl


	7. The Tour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, this is the end.
> 
> I have a laundry list of people I need to thank: 
> 
> Sara for helping me in all the ways you do.
> 
> Emma for listening to me while drunk, ramble on and on about how Annie could not have won her Games by chance.
> 
> Liana for re-reading the Hunger Games for me.
> 
> Samarra for making me read the books in the first place.
> 
> Sabaceanbabe and Sohypothetically for easily inviting me into the fandom, and all the other tumblr people who always reblog and make my day.
> 
> And finally, this is for everyone who wrote Annie as being unable to function without Finnick, or just wrote her off as nothing more than a love interest. Your characterization pissed me off so much, I decided to try to subvert it all.

The train is rhythmic in a way that makes her sick, it is smooth and even, unforgivably at ease for the turmoil she is feeling.

She does not want to watch the silver train snake its way down the mountain, because it is a loud reminder that she is still alive, however she forces herself to watch.

{ _you bought your freedom with everyone elses blood_ }

They don’t drug her, in fact after her interview The Capitol seemed to want her gone, she was an unfortunate living reminder of how unpredictable the Games could be, for who would have thought the starving waif girl from Four would drown everyone?

Finnick Odair keeps tapping his fingers on his leg in a rhythm that doesn’t ever complete, and he seems to be doing absentmindedly. Mags is reading.

The silence, while it should be deafening, is a welcome reprisal.

She is coming home.

* * *

 

When they finally arrive at Four, she walks out on her own. Each step measured, there was a fight between Finnick and her, when he stood and his hands held tightly on her arm, as if he was afraid she was unable to support herself, she had yanked her arm back, and this time he let her.

Finnick hovers behind her, worried that she’s going to collapse, and there are a sea of people, all with somber expressions and she wonders what they are thinking.

She knows she is The Mad Victor, the titles dubbed to her by the nurses has made it’s unfortunate round and she feels like it will stick to her like the scent of blood and death she feels like she’s bathed in, but here in Four what is she?

It’s hard to breathe, with everyone staring at her, and she just wants them to look away, but when Finnick Odair comes behind her, attentions shift and they look at him.

There’s movement, and Jonah, with his dark hair and green eyes she wears pushing his way to the front.

‘Annie,’ he cries, wrapping her up like she a child, ‘Annie.’

Slowly she hugs her father, comforted in the scent of sea salt and ink. She can perhaps pretend that this was all a nightmare.

‘Thank you.’ Jonah says over her head, in tones of admiration and disbelief, ‘Thank you for bringing her back.’

‘I did it.’ She says, her face pressed against his chest, her words muffled but she is positive her father hears, ‘I brought myself back. I won.’

{ _its just a game_ }

* * *

 

Sleeping without being chained to the bed is a new experience, one she’s not quite sure she enjoys.  At least it guaranteed she had to stay in one place, and when they stopped drugging her, there are only so many speckles on a ceiling one can count before they fall asleep.

But movement means she can walk around the new big house at the Victor’s Wharf they have to live in, the house up North, where she can see mountains in the mist, and the friends she adores are far, far away.

Everything of Annie before the Games are out of reach, and she cannot find that girl again.

Jonah finds her on the porch, clutching the railing like it is the only thing tying her down.

‘I didn’t want to win.’ She tells her father in broken words, aware of how cruel she is being, but she cannot keep these words in, and he is the only thing she has to anchor herself to the girl before the murder she became. ‘I didn’t want to die, but I didn’t want to win. And now I did, and I don’t know how to live.’

Jonah doesn’t say anything, but he hugs her.

* * *

 

The next morning, Jonah returns to breakfast which she has burnt the eggs and forgotten to defrost the bread for toast with Finnick Odair who looks tired, and awkward, but he maneuvers around their kitchen with a practises eased and begins to start making himself coffee.

‘What are you-‘

Finnick Odair holds out a finger, with his eyes closed, ‘Shh.’ He says.

 _Things Finnick Odair Does That Annoy Me,_ she lists as she bristles, _Number One, he shushes me._

Jonah is quick to realize his daughter’s anger, and placates her by taking a large bite of the burnt scrambled eggs and declaring them delicious, though she notices her father discretely try to add a lot of salt and pepper to disguise the burnt part.

After Finnick’s second coffee, in which there is colour in his face and his eyes are now open and focusing he tells her, he is her baby sitter.

‘What?’

He is a year older than her, and apparently unable to function in the morning hours of eight-thirty, and seems to think he is the perfect person to watch her? She’s insulted, she’d much rather Mags.

The way he shrugs makes it a bit clear that he is not in favour of it either. ‘You’ve got to adapt to being a victor.’

Adaptability, he told her that no one is a Victor by chance, they have the strongest survival instinct, and she won because of her survival instinct.

She would and will argue with him, if the topic comes up, that her survival instinct was overtaken by a desire of revenge, but it’s neither here nor there; a survival instinct is brought on by adaptability, how quickly one can become proficient with the changing environment.

She adapted in the arena, and lost her humanity, she can adapt to society and perhaps she can be normal.

{ _normal is subjective anyway_ }

* * *

 

Within a few weeks, Finnick and Annie have found a somewhat normal routine, after it became quite clear he would not leave her alone, due to threatening by Mags, and an explanation that this is what all the Victors in Four do,  they let the newest Victor get help adjusting by the one who previously had their position.

Unfortunately that means Finnick.

She wakes up early, and goes to the market and gets fresh bread and eggs to make breakfast for Jonah and Finnick who stumbles in and ignores them all until his morning coffee and then he makes conversation, before Jonah goes to work.

They explore Four, she showed him the library and he’s found old poetry, thinking it hilarious and spends his time making bad puns and dirty limericks.

She’s added to the list of _Things Finnick Odair Does That Annoy Me_ , he doesn’t put books back in their proper spot, and so she always has to go trailing behind him, refiling the books in their proper position, and right side up.

He’s incredibly absentminded, leaving stacks of books on the floor when he’s tired of them, and moving on to find something that piques his interest.

She’s also started another list, _Stupid Things Finnick Says_ , as he always seems to run his mouth, and she really does not understand how his reputation is this brilliant, suave Capitol womaniser ; when he tried to tell her that Northern Girls can’t stand the cold water, and she proved him wrong by standing in her white sundress in the cold October rain, he turned a few different colours before hitting his head on the tree.

It is nice, if not for the fact she grabs sleep in twenty minute increments, napping in the library when Finnick is busy reciting bad poetry, because when she is bed, she wakes up in the arena, and there is blood everywhere and she can’t stop Reid and he is staring at her, telling her it is her fault and he is dead, dead, dead, dead, dead and what can she do, tell her how to fix it Reid, tell her and she will.

{ _murderer_ }

‘Annie?’ Finnick waves his hand in front of her face, and she blinks to focus. ‘Annie you checked out again.’

She does that, getting lost in her thoughts, or memories and she just stares at space, Jonah and the other Victors ignore the pause and have begun to treat it like it never happened, it irritates her, she shouldn’t disconnect from the conversation and Finnick is the only one whil listen to her, because he seems to delight in finding everything that annoys her and he does so in great delight with her.

(The time he put salt in clam chowder, she had to phsycially refrained from dumping the bowl on his too smug face)

‘You were saying?’

‘Your tour is in two weeks.’ He says, and she feels odd.

It’s not anxious, no she knows that feeling like the back of her hand , and while she begins to make lists of what she will have to do to prepare for the Tour. It’s a different feeling, one of tiredness. She does not think anyone will want to see the girl who won at the cost of their children.

Reid’s family refuses to meet her and she stood at their closed door for almost four hours, reliving his death and willing the door to open and her chance to apologize to his family for living and failing their son, before Finnick found her and made her go home.

‘Are you coming?’ It’s more of an afterthought, since becoming her “babysitter” (she loathes the term, but he is not her friend, and she does not know what to call him), she hasn’t spent an entire day without Finnick Odair invading it in some sense.

‘No,’ he shakes his head, ‘Only the mentor of the Victor will go.’

‘So you’re just staying in Four?’ She asks, thinking of the train ride with Mags. Mags promised to teach how to embroider; perhaps this trip will be useful for that.

Finnick laughs again, and it reminds her of the laugh he gave her before her interview. It is cold, and cruel, as if she is stupid for not knowing.  She’s heard his real laugh, when she woke up from a nap in the library and he had found a en and drew penises all over her face and on her forehead in big block letters he had written ‘Finnick Odair is better than Annie Cresta’ and when she had tried to make fancy coffee drinks, and the milk she had been shaking exploded on her face.

This feels like a cheap imitation, built on ice and teeth, used to protect him and keep people out.

‘I’m going back to the Capitol.’ He tells her.

‘Why?’

‘Everyone wants me.’

* * *

 

Twelve is odd, there is dirt everywhere, and she knows that this is the poorest districts; and even those who are considered the richest look thin, and carry ghosts of hope in their eyes. Mags stands offside, and the Mayor of the District welcomes her, as if it is an honour to have a killer on display.

{ _you didnt kill their tributes they cant hate you that much_ }

Haymitch, the lone Victor who won in a way no one talks stands on stage, looking bored and reeking of alcohol. She’s not acquainted enough with the different varieties of alcohol, but she knows the scent of clothes soaked in them, and suspects he might have spilled a bottle on him before she had to give a speech.

She reads the speech written for her in a quick even and unemotional voice; she does not look up because she does not want to see the people stare.

{ _damning and condemning you for living when the tributes for twelve are buried in the field_ }

{ _wasnt my fault_ }

{ _you didnt kill them but you sure as fuck didnt save them_ }

Later, when she’s about to board the Train, Haymitch takes her elbow.

‘You’re a smart girl.’ He tells her and she flinches from the liquor on his breathe, but his grey eyes are alert, and sober. ‘A very smart girl and you’ve fucked yourself.’

She stares wide eyed, unable to find words to string together to prove him wrong, or say something in kind.

He lets her elbow go, and she gets swept into the train, and the door close.

She stares out the window, and Twelve becomes a blur.

{ _i should have died_ }

* * *

 

District Eleven smells like air and freshly cut grass and it is very different from the sea salt she thinks she might sweat, like everyone else from Four.

Chaff smiles at her kindly and offers her his arm, while Mags stands behind, watching them like a belligerent grandmother.

There is a dance after the speech, and he pours liquor freely, spinning her around like a jolly uncle at a family reunion.

‘Annie Cresta,’ Chaff says, ‘I think you did good.’

‘Why?’

He doesn’t answer, and she thinks it’s infuriating.

* * *

 

District Ten is more or less a blur, she tries to forget it as her anxiety builds and she has to remember that District Nine, where she killed the girl trying to avenge her little brother, the girl, the girl whose name she does not know is dead because of her and oh, oh why did she not die?

{ _it would be easy to die on the train no one locks up the knives_ }

She read somewhere that while addiction is very high in Victors, there has yet to be any sucides. She laughs on the train, and Mags looks up from her embroidery, but’s it so hysterical she can’t stop.

He was right.

Finnick was right.

Victors are survivals, and the minute she thought about the knives, she knew she wouldn’t kill herself.

{ _dont wanna die nope killed everyone so i could live_ }

{ _id do it again_ }

She doesn’t sleep, and makes lists out of ink and white lines that quickly disappear on her skin all night until they stop in District Nine.

There are violet splotches under her eyes, and no one tries to hide it. They seem to be selling her as a drowning victim, her hair in tangles and waves, and her dress long and flowy.

They make her wear shoes.

She knows the Tributes family is front and center, the father favours the daughter whom she killed, glaring at her like she is a monster.

She doesn’t follow the speech; instead she stares back at them.  They are valid in their hatred, she killed their daughter. Someone else killed their son.

‘Natasha was my second kill.’ She says, when the escort clears his throat, and she knows she has to speak. ‘I didn’t want to die. I don’t think she wanted to either. But I wanted it more. And I won’t forget her. Or what I did.’

They pull her off stage but she can hear loud hacking cries.

She doesn’t explain.

* * *

 

When she steps out of the train into District Eight, she steps into the arms of Cecelia who hugs her in a way that reminds her of how Jonah hugs her.

‘You must be strong baby girl.’ Cecelia whispers to her hair, ‘You’ve been so strong, but you need to keep being strong. You’re not drowning, you’re just treading water.’

She cries for the first time on her Tour in Cecelia’s arms, and the cameras seem to eat it up.

‘Be strong.’ Cecelia murmurs.

{ _im not i wasn’t supposed to win i dont know how to be strong_ }

{ _treading water is exhausting_ }

* * *

 

Woof gives her a smile, and shows her how to properly cut down a tree.  It’s tradition in District Seven for the Victor to chop down the tree planted by last year’s Victor.

She doesn’t understand it, but she takes the axe gingerly, unsure how to hold it properly, and swings.

She misses tremendously and there’s loud laughter.  Her cheeks burn red and she staggers a bit, readjusting her grip and hauling the axe out of the ground.

‘Be careful yeah?’ Woof says, winking, ‘It’s a bit heavy girlie, try again.’

It takes her several times before she manages to scrape the bark, and then Woof takes pity on her and helps her cut down the tree.

‘You aren’t very strong are you?’ A girl in the crowd says darkly, ‘How did you even win?’

{ _i killed a child and a girl who was too upset to fight properly i drowned everyone  because i can swim and they cant I used the arena as a weapon because im not strong ive never been strong and i didn’t want to die_ }

Mags takes her away before she can scream at the girl that she didn’t want to win, she was supposed to die, and what is she supposed to do now?

What is she supposed to do?

How do you live?

* * *

 

She doesn’t remember District Six.

She spends the entire time reliving the time spent in the hospital when she sees a needle and she covers her ears and there’s tear tracks on her face.

{ _reids dead because of you_ }

* * *

 

She wishes she remembered District Six and she lost herself in District Five.

The boy’s family, the boy she killed, the first kill of the Seventieth Hunger Games, is looking at her like they would kill her where she stands.

{let them}

‘I was trying to save him.’ She says, and her voice feels like it belongs to someone else, listless and empty; the mother flinches like she’s throwing daggers.

It’s almost funny the amount of pure fury and hatred ringing in their eyes, it’s palpable to how much she hates herself.

{ _you wouldnt want him to have won hed be a murderer and hed hate himself hes better dead even if you dont believe me_ }

* * *

 

In District Three,  Wiress tucks her hair and make comforting cooing noises.  The other Victor acts like a barrier, while Mags talks to Beetee and the other Victors.

‘Try.’ Wiress says, pushing a grid drawn on paper to her. It’s a grid of nine and each box are divvied into nine separate boxes, with some numbers filled in. ‘Each box need a number. No more than nine. Line of numbers.’

‘In a row?’

‘Try.’

She likes District Three the most.

* * *

 

She knows she smells of vomit, she had been sick on the train, realizing she was coming to the district that killed Reid.

{ _it wasnt the entire district who killed him, just one boy just a boy just a boy I drowned because he killed reid he killed him and hes dead and im happy hes dead and I would do it again and again and again_ }

District Two citizens don’t hate her, they don’t like her either, and she won out of luck to them.

{ _winning isnt always physical you can be smart and win_ }

It’s all together apathetic. To be chosen for the Games is a great honour; to win is the highest honour. To lose is not as big of a disgrace as she would have thought.

They are warriors, and warriors fall in battle.

They accept her as a Victor, but they do not have to like her.

{ _i dont like me either_ }

* * *

 

The Twin Victors, golden and glamorous, what she would describe as gods from the old books from before she’s found greet her with kind and knowing smiles.

‘Congratulations.’ Gloss says to her, taking her right hand, and parading her down the catwalk. He’s the first person to congratulate her on her win.  ‘You deserved to win.’

‘I didn’t want to.’ She tells him, and he bites his lip, as if he’s trying to stop himself from saying things.

‘No one wants to win.’ He tells quietly, when she’s about to board the train, after Cashmere kisses her cheek and promises she will write. ‘But none of us wanted to die.’

* * *

 

Finnick Odair is waiting with the largest group of cameras since the Tour started.

‘The newest Victor.’ Finnick says, smirking, his lips curling in a way that seems cold and she stares. He smells like sugar water, and perfume, and it’s not like Finnick at all.

But then again, she’s only known him for a few months; perhaps this is the real Finnick. His shirt is undone, and his eyes seem hollow.

‘Don’t cry now Annie.’ Finnick says condescendingly, and because he’s said it, she can feel tears welling in her eyes.

Mags moves her forward and she thinks Mags might have whacked him with her cane.

‘I don’t know you.’ Annie says, staring back at Finnick. She doesn’t recognize the arrogant Victor who made her mad on the train, or the idiot boy who likes to tease her from Four in Finnick Odair. This is a new one, and she doesn’t understand who this is, she doesn’t like him like this.

‘You really are mad.’ Finnick says offhandedly, loudly, letting his voice carry. ‘Everyone knows me, don’t they?’

She feels sick.

{ _not mad not mad no no im not insane stop it stop saying it i trusted you i trusted you stop_ }

Mags rubs her back when she vomits in a neon potted plant.

* * *

 

The party to celebrate her Victory is filled with lights, loud music and a lot of various colours. She’s noticed that the dresses the women seem to be wearing are looser and more reminiscent of what she is wearing.

Her Victory might not be the one she wanted, but apparently the ill-fitting sundresses with too much fabric is an acceptable fashion trend.

Brutus, a large Victor from Two sits beside her near the edge of the garden, and they watch the crowd.

‘Victors are a special breed.’ He tells her, barely moving his lips over the glass full of liquor, she mimics his movement.  ‘We survive. We endure.  We wait.’

‘Why are you telling me this?’ She asks, her nose wrinkling over the strong scent of liquor.

Brutus watches her, waiting for her to drink. She does and her face contorts in horror, as the clear liquid burns her throat.  There’s a small fond smile on his face, and she coughs.

‘We take care of ourselves.’ He says simply, and there isn’t any more conversation.

She looks at the crowd, and she notices that all the Victors are keeping company only with each other, except Finnick Odair whose hand is moving very high up a woman with a scale pattern thigh, and Cashmere who is leading a man by the hand out of the room.

The Capitol citizens talk to each other, loudly, and stare openly at the Victors like animals in a cage. They objectify them, thinking them as not human but as other.  

When Enobaria, the Victor who won with her teeth, now sharpened like canines and capped with gold for the occasion sits with them, the woman takes her hand and squeezes it.

‘Did you think I would win?’ Annie breaks the silence, and the look in her dark eyes, while surprised is knowing.

‘No.’ Enobaria says smirking, and Annie wonders why she would sharpen her teeth, as every facial expression she did became predatory.  ‘But the ones who win are different.’

She wants to know what makes her so different, but Gloss comes with an unreadable expression on his face. Gloss’s entrance seems to be a signal in which all of the Victors who were in the vicinity, except for Finnick Odair and Cashmere who had seemed to have disappeared, came closer.

There are so many cameras on them, she feels the hot lights make her faint, and wash her out.

‘President Snow would like to privately meet Annie.’ Gloss says, and it’s particular, how it feels like all the heat has been taken out of the room, and how all the Victors have become expressionless.  She’s already met him, they opened the party with a dance where she was always two beats behind, and she stepped on his feet.

She stands, her hands fisting the fabric of her dress, and her feet aching in the uncomfortable shoes and she follows Gloss wordlessly through the party and up several marble stairs. Gloss doesn’t talk to her, and she makes lists in her head of anything President Snow could have to tell her, he has already congratulated her, and inquired about her father’s health.

Gloss deposits her in front of a door, and he gives her a sorry smile before he turns and leaves. Annie watches his blonde hair disappear down the stairs, before she knocks once on the door.

‘Come in.’ President Snow says calmly, and Annie opens the door before she hesitates.

There is dark wood furniture and roses in vases sit on the furniture. President Snow is behind a large wooden desk, with his hands folded on top. ‘Sit please.’

He gestures to a chair, and Annie complies feeling like a child about to be scolded by the petrifying terrifying headmaster.

He looks at her for a long moment, and she looks back, resisting the urge to fidget.

‘Annie Cresta,’ he says slowly, ‘our newest victor.’

She doesn’t say anything, but his face lined by age, are not lines out of kindness like Mags, instead they remind her of the pan ice that comes to Four in the North. It comes in late November, closing lakes and ports, it looks harmless, beautiful and weak, but it is thick and expands quickly, many boats have had their hulls pierced and been unable to leave by underestimating the pan ice.

‘I must admit, I was confused with that you did originally with the rocks and the dam,’ President Snow says conversationally, ‘but then, well that was quite brilliant of you.’

She says nothing; pan ice is one of the prettiest ices in her opinion, but her father showed her wrecks that happen when captains push through the ice ignoring the sharp edges.

‘But you see these are called The Hunger Games, and games have rules Miss Cresta,’ he continues on, not expecting her to talk, ‘And you have broken the rules. Perhaps you’ve won unfairly, there should be a punishment shouldn’t there, for breaking the rules?’

Again she doesn’t answer, but her mind goes wild. Will he hit her? Like at school must she hold out her palm and have a ruler sting her again?

Somehow she highly doubts he would resort to slapping her with a ruler.

‘Your father, Jonah, I believe you said, was very healthy. He travels a lot for business does he not? It would be a shame if an accident were to happen to him.’

Eyes wide, Annie inhales sharply, and the curve of his smile, sinister and cold widens the slightest bit.

‘Please-‘

‘I think we can agree it would be in your father’s best interest if you went away.’  President Snow continues conversationally, making no indication he heard her beg. ‘I will make you a deal Miss Cresta, you will never have to come here again, never have to do anything related to the Games. You can go back to Four, and be forgotten, if you never talk of your Games to anyone ever again.  We don’t want anyone to get ideas do we now, Miss Cresta?’ President Snow leans forward in his chair, ‘Though I am not sure that anyone would believe the Poor Mad Girl.’

Her stomach drops, and she understands everything President Snow is saying. She broke the rules of the Games, despite it not being a written rule.

{ _unwritten rules are still rules after all_ }

He wants her to go away, to be forgotten. She can be a symbol of how you can win without playing the Game properly, she needs to eliminated, but she is a Victor, and there is an untouchable status there.  He cannot kill her, but he can silence her, stigmatize her, call her Mad and condemn her, so anything she says will never be taken seriously, and the rules of his Games are preserved.

And if she disobeys, if she refuses her father is the one who will pay. He is no Victor, he is disposable to President Snow.

She nods.

President Snow stands, and walks around the desk, and she thinks he is going to usher her out, now that they have understood each other instead he stands behind her, ‘Such a pity though Miss Cresta, that it has to be this way. I had such plans for you.’

The screens behind President Snow’s desk flicker, and she has a video stream, the date and time stamp in the corner tells her it is happening in real time.

It is Finnick; Finnick naked, and beautiful in a way that she remembers thinking is deadly, being beaten and carved up by a man with pink hair. The man bites at Finnick’s neck and drags a knife down his thigh. The man doesn’t notice but she watches as Finnick bites his lip and winces.

There’s a strangle scream and she realizes it’s from her, when the man forces Finnick around and enters him.

‘The Games are expensive Miss Cresta.’ President Snow says in her ear, ‘And Victors like Finnick must thank the generous donors to the cause.’

She can’t stop staring revolted as the man slice Finnick up and red liquid dots the table he is bent over.

‘I have gotten many requests about you as well.’ President Snow continues, ‘But I was told to turn them down.’

She wants to stop, her fingers curl into fists, and if she turns she can strike President Snow in the nose, make him bleed for the blood coming from Finnick. But if she does that, her father will die.

‘It’s surprising, how fond of you Finnick has become.’  He touches her shoulder, before letting go and walking to the door, and holding it open for her.

She realizes then, watching Finnick on the screen with an empty look in his eyes, that while Victor is only a few short letters from victim, the reaping is only a few short letters from the word “raping.”

And perhaps, that is what The Capitol does to them. They take away their choice, their voices, and with each year they destroy them with unspeakable things they do, and they spend the rest of their life trying to justify it

This was just a Game.

And she, Finnick, Mags and all the others have all lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, for the kudos and all of those lovely things.
> 
> I am more than willing to answer any questions at my tumblr: seevikifangirl


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